I slowly crunch my way through the carnage to get to the kitchen. Pantry doors have been flung wide open. Pots and pans, dishes, coffee mugs, and glass jars of spaghetti sauce have broken free, the sauce leaving smears of red, chunky liquid across the white tile floor.
I’m exhausted. It’s too much. I crumble to the floor and push a cabinet door shut so I can lean against it for support.
“Mom’s box of papers is upstairs, in her closet, on the top shelf,” I tell Coach. “It’s probably on the floor now.”
“Let me go first and make sure it’s safe up there.”
“I want to get some of my stuff. Better clothes, too. And something for my mom to change into when she’s released.”
Coach nods.
I curl into myself after he goes. Hold my breath. Hold my stomach. Stuff my feelings in. Because we don’t have a house. We don’t have a home.
We just have silence.
Like when Charlie went quiet.
Charlie.
Coach comes back to the kitchen minutes later.
“About the same up there as here,” he says.
“Can I go up to change clothes and pack a backpack?”
“Get enough clothes for you and your mom. You won’t be coming back here. You two will stay with me. My house had minimal damage.” Coach commutes to work, and his town didn’t get hit as hard as ours did.
I unearth my team duffel bag from the mess of clothes on my closet floor and shove jeans and sweats and shirts and underwear inside. A toothbrush. Toothpaste. Tampons. Shampoo. I go to my mom’s room and do the same.
On the way out, my eye catches on a photo. One of her and my dad in Italy. Laughing on the beach with sun-streaked hair. I pull it loose from the broken frame and shove it into my bag.
“I’m ready,” I say. Coach holds the door open for me, grabs my bag and slings it over his shoulder. I stop short at the threshold. Look him in the eye.
“Wait. Is this going to be weird? My mom and me living with you?”
“I don’t want it to be weird. I can make it not weird if you can.”
That makes me laugh, and I guess I’m lucky. At least I like Coach. And respect him. And he is funny when he wants to be.
“Let’s go,” Coach says. “I’m sure your mom is missing you since she just got you back.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
2:50 P.M.
In the dim light of the hospital room, I sift through Charlie’s journal while my mom sleeps. I turn to the last filled page, curious to know what he was writing when I watched him at the laundromat. Across the top, underlined, he’d written, What I Wish I Could Say to Mom and Dad.
Dear Mom and Dad,
I want to tell you my story. In my words.
It’s a detailed account about what happened that night at the fraternity house. The words are the same ones he’d used to tell me. About Jason. The frat house. The defibrillator. The guilt.
I want you to understand that I’m scared and I’m sad and I really need my parents right now.
The words stop. Like he had more to say and didn’t know how to say it.
And then, abruptly in the middle of the page, not connected at all, but in the same color pen, it says:
More later. A cute girl just walked into the laundromat and I bet she wants me to buy her beer. We’ll see if I can restrain myself from lecturing her. She looks smart enough to know better.
So he knew why I was there all along? And he was just waiting for me to say something? I laugh out loud.
Charlie.
I close his journal and hug it to my chest.
Later, Coach tells me about what happened on the pool deck when the earthquake hit. How it was the middle of practice. How he was worried about my not being there and what he would tell my mom.
“Iris didn’t make it,” he says.
I suck in a breath. Shake my head. “No.”
“I was waiting to tell you. I wanted you to see your mom first and to know she was okay and you both had a safe place to stay.”
My eyes tear. I’ve known Iris since kindergarten. After me, Iris was the best at standing up to Mila.
Mila.
“But the rest of my friends are okay? Thea and Juliette?” What about Mila? Where is she?
Coach nods. “Thea and Juliette are fine.”
“Have you heard anything about Mila?”
“I haven’t. I wish I had, though.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we haven’t really been speaking to each other.”
“I noticed.” He leans forward in his chair.
“I tried to talk to her. I wanted her to get help, but I’m not trained in that sort of thing. For all I know, I said the wrong thing.”
“You talked to her from a place of concern. You wanted her to get help because you care about her.” He shrugs. “That sounds about right to me. Sometimes we can only do the best we know how to do at the time. And it sounds like you did that.”
“That’s good advice.” I wish Charlie were here so I could tell it to him. He did the best he knew how to do at the time with Jason.
Coach continues. “That was some pretty heavy stuff that went down with Mila. And she was probably angry at first. At you and me. Not because we are to blame for her choices, but because it was easier to blame someone else instead of herself.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Did you give me more playing time because of my mom? Did you feel like you had to?”
His brows scrunch. He looks like I slapped him in the face. “Why would you think that?”
“Mila said it.”
“Ah.” He really looks at me. “And no.”
“I wanted to quit. I didn’t want special treatment.”
“I would’ve been disappointed in you if you’d quit, but I would’ve been more disappointed in myself. I would’ve failed you as a coach.” He shakes his head. “You get game time because you’re my number one offensive player, Ruby. Period.”
“Okay. I believe you.”
“Good. And Ruby?”
“Yeah.”
“You can’t blame yourself for what happened to Mila.” Coach sounds like me talking to Charlie in the rubble. “You can’t force her to get help. She has to want it for herself. That wasn’t her first offense, you know? She was suspended for a few days in October for something similar.”
“She was?”
“Yes. She didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
But I suddenly remember those October days. She’d told us her mom was making her visit a sick aunt in Palm Springs. It was the middle of the week and it seemed weird to me that they couldn’t wait until the weekend. The sad part is they’d actually gone. And probably sat by the pool and ordered room service, thankful for the excuse to have a minivacation. One offense was suspension. A second offense gave the school no other choice but to expel her.
And still, she hadn’t wanted help.
I know how hard it is to ask for help. To admit that you need it. I hope Mila is strong enough to see it now. Because if this last week has taught me anything, it’s that I can’t do everything on my own. Asking for help got me here. It’s how I got better in the hospital and how I found my mom. Asking for help doesn’t make people weak. It makes them strong.
“I think there’s a chance Mila’s ready for help,” Coach says. “Sometimes you have to get to the worst place before you can climb back out.”
“That makes sense.” Mila lost everything. Her team. Her college water polo dreams. Her school. Her friends. “I just want her to be okay.”
“So do I.”
My mom stirs. Opens her eyes. Sees us whispering, heads close together, trying not to wake her.
“What did I miss?” she says.
“Only a little coach-and-player talk,” Coach says.
“You two. All water polo all the time.”
Coach walks to her. Squeezes her hand. “You hungry? Thirsty? What can I get you?�
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“Water would be great. If you can find it.”
“I will.”
He hands me his phone as he goes. “I’ve got all my players in my contacts. Even Mila. Why don’t you go ahead and give it a try?”
“Thanks.”
“Good luck.”
My mom rolls to her side to see me better when he’s gone. She winces.
“How’s the pain?” I ask.
“It hurts enough to hurt.”
“I know what you mean. More than you know.”
“I wish you didn’t.”
In an instant I’m there again. In the cold and the dark. In the tiny coffin space of the laundromat with Charlie not breathing next to me. “Were you scared?”
“I was terrified. But not just for me. I was worried about you.” She sniffs. “There were only a few of us in the office at the time. We didn’t all make it. And my head . . . I knew something was seriously wrong. It was a concussion. I was afraid to sleep.”
“Yeah. Charlie and I tried to take turns sleeping.”
“That was smart.”
“I feel like I went through this thing that nobody else could possibly understand. But you actually do. You were trapped like I was.”
“And now I have to get better like you did.”
“That sounds mildly optimistic.”
She smiles and her eyes crinkle. “I try.”
“I know.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
3:52 P.M.
It takes a while, but I finally get through to Thea. She picks up on the first ring and I tell her it’s me, not Coach.
“Oh my god! Ruby! Where the hell have you been?”
“Is there any way you can get to SHC Med? My mom’s here. I can tell you everything, but I don’t want to suck up what’s left of Coach’s phone charge.”
An hour later, Thea and Juliette arrive at the hospital.
Mila trails behind them, her arm in a cast. I hope it says something that she’s here. That maybe we’ll be okay after all.
It doesn’t look right to see all of them without Iris.
I collide into a group hug with Thea and Juliette while Mila hangs back. I look at her and she shrugs. I pull her in, too. The four of us hang on tight, everyone crying. We cry about the fact that we’re here and Iris isn’t.
Once we collect ourselves, we sit and my friends inundate me with questions. Thea lets me use her phone to text Leo because she has him in her contacts and Coach doesn’t. My text won’t go through and I have to keep trying. My friends listen while I tell them about Charlie. And being trapped.
“Unreal,” Juliette says, shaking her head.
They tell me what happened at the pool when the earthquake hit. How Coach knew what to do and how he kept them safe.
“He tried so hard to save Iris,” Thea says, her voice catching, like she’s seeing it all flash in front of her again.
The same way I keep flashing to the rubble. And my hospital bed. And the stairwell. I keep seeing it. I always will.
“Coach was pretty calm, but he was totally worried about you,” Juliette says. “Grilling all of us about where you were. Like he was personally responsible for your safety.”
“He’d do that for any of us,” I say.
“He took care of Iris like she was his own kid,” Thea says.
“See? It’s not just me.” I look at Mila. “Despite what you want to think about me getting special treatment or whatever.”
“I shouldn’t have said that. It was a messed-up thing to say.”
“You’ve said a lot of messed-up things,” I tell her.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, man, Iris would’ve loved this,” Thea says. “The two of you making up.”
And then we’re all crying again. For the loss of our friend—and life as we knew it.
Until Thea’s phone dings.
“Oh! It’s Leo!” She holds the phone up for me to see the text on the screen.
I’ll be there as fast as I can.
“He’s on his way,” I say, a smile taking over my face as my body floods with relief. Leo is okay. I’m going to see him. I’m going to be able to hug him and hold him and be held by him. I’m so thankful.
“I’m starving,” Juliette says.
I dig into my pocket. Rip open a protein bar and divide it into even squares. We chew slowly, and I try to imagine that the tasteless, sticky lump in my mouth is a slice of pizza instead.
But then Mila says, “This is disgusting.” And we all bust out laughing.
“It’s the worst,” I admit.
“When will we have real food again?” Thea whimpers.
“When will we have water polo practice again?” Juliette says. “Is our season just over?”
“Coach’ll find a way,” I say.
Mila sits quietly next to me. “Wish I could be there,” she finally says. She turns to me. “I haven’t told anyone yet, but I decided to enter treatment. This whole week has been, I don’t know, life-changing, right? For everyone. I’ve had a lot of time to think and . . . I just. . . I don’t want to die.” She swipes at her eyes.
“I don’t want you to die, either.” I pull her into a hug. “And I don’t want to fight with you anymore. I miss my best friend. The one who always had my back. The one who made a pact with me when we were ten years old and the only two girls on a team of boys.”
“I’m going to try to do better,” she mumbles into my shoulder. “I need to get help. And it’s going to be hard.”
“I’m here if you need me.”
“We all are,” Thea says.
“Thanks,” says Mila. “It won’t be easy. I’m sure I’ll need all of you.”
And she’s right. It won’t be easy. Rehab is hard work. She might slip. Stumble. But all I can hope is that she’ll keep trying. She has to try every day.
We hang out a while longer, going floor-to-floor to find something left in a vending machine while swapping our best Iris stories. I’m grateful for the simplicity of the moment. And for the loyalty of my friends.
“Thank you for coming all this way,” I say.
“We had to see you,” Thea says.
“Unfortunately, I think we have to head out now,” Juliette says. “It’s getting dark, and there’s a curfew at the shelter.”
“Totally get it,” I say. “I’ll find my way to you next time.”
We hug again. Promise we’ll keep tabs on one another. Coach comes out of my mom’s room to say goodbye. Tells my friends to be safe. And they’ve got his number if they need him. Or me.
After they go, Coach heads off to ask for something from the nurse’s station.
And then I wait.
When Leo arrives, he reaches out. Pulls me in. I sink.
I fall completely and wholly into the familiar safety of him. He draws me in. Tighter. Closer. Like he can’t believe it’s really me. I know exactly how he feels. And then he pulls back. Touches my face. Making sure I’m here and true. He runs his fingertip over the stitches on my arm. His brow twists with worry.
“I was freaking out, Ruby.”
“I know. Me too.”
He knots his fingers with mine. Kisses each of my knuckles. “I was so bummed about what I said the other day. And how it made you feel. That was the last time we were together. That was the last time I saw you.”
And then I remember what he said about my hands and how upset I got. It seemed like such a big deal when it happened. It doesn’t matter now, but this is what Leo has been worrying about. This wish for different last words. I know how awful that must’ve been, because it’s the same way I’ve been wishing my last conversation with my mom hadn’t been about how she’d ruined my life. We remember the last things we say to people. It’s what was on Charlie’s mind. Maybe even Mila’s. We all want to have a chance to go back and make things right again, but we don’t all get that chance.
But right now Leo does.
And I do.
We’re lucky.
I can say the things I want to say to him. The things I need to say.
“I love you.” I lean in. Kiss him. Push my fingers through his curly hair to pull him closer. I put every ounce of reassurance I can into this moment. Life can change in an instant. It’s important to let the ones you love know how you feel. “It’s okay. I’m okay. I love you. We’re okay.”
FOUR MONTHS LATER . . .
I knock on the heavy wood door. It took a lot to find this place. I remembered Charlie saying his brother worked at the Apple Store at the mall so I started my research there. Talking to Charlie’s brother led me to here: a nondescript rental home right off the freeway.
I clutch Charlie’s journal to my chest, a little sad to let it go. When I read his words, I could hear him. So giving them up is almost like letting him go all over again.
The door opens and a woman about my mom’s age studies me. She has light hair, almost white at the tips, and bright blue eyes. I try to see Charlie in her. There are pieces of him. I can tell.
“Can I help you?” she asks.
I clear my throat. “I’m Ruby. I was at the laundromat with Charlie.”
She pulls her hand to her chest. “Oh, my goodness.”
I hold the journal out to her. “These are Charlie’s words. You should know them. They’re important.”
She reaches for the journal. She’s shaking. And I realize how important this is. I’m giving her a piece of her son. Something else she can have to remember him by. To know him in a way she’d never realized. My heart breaks even more when I acknowledge Charlie won’t ever get the chance to be with his mom and dad again, to remind them love is what matters, not grades and schools and disagreements. Family is worth fighting for. Love is worth fighting for.
She runs her hand along the front of the journal, letting her fingers linger over the raised gold letters of his name. When she looks at me again, her eyes are shiny with tears. A mixture of happy and sad.
“Thank you,” she says. “This is such a gift.”
“Charlie was a gift to me. I’m glad I got to know him.”
“You were at the laundromat with him?”
“I was. I think a part of me will always be there.”
Aftershocks Page 18